Video compressive sensing with on-chip programmable subsampling

The maximum achievable frame-rate for a video camera is limited by the sensor´s pixel readout rate. The same sensor may achieve either a slow frame-rate at full resolution (e.g., 60 fps at 4 Mpixel resolution) or a fast frame-rate at low resolution (e.g., 240 fps at 1 Mpixel resolution). Higher frame-rates are achieved using pixel readout modes (e.g., subsampling or binning) that sacrifice spatial for temporal resolution within a fixed bandwidth. A number of compressive video cameras have been introduced to overcome this fixed bandwidth constraint and achieve high frame-rates without sacrificing spatial resolution. These methods use electro-optic components (e.g., LCoS, DLPs, piezo actuators) to introduce high speed spatio-temporal multiplexing in captured images. Full resolution, high speed video is then restored by solving an undetermined system of equations using a sparse regularization framework. In this work, we introduce the first all-digital temporal compressive video camera that uses custom subsampling modes to achieve spatio-temporal multiplexing. Unlike previous compressive video cameras, ours requires no additional optical components, enabling it to be implemented in a compact package such as a mobile camera module. We demonstrate results using a TrueSense development kit with a 12 Mpixel sensor and programmable FPGA read out circuitry.